Recapping the Colts’ bizarre hiring of Jeff Saturday | You Pod to Win the Game
Yahoo Sports Charles Robinson, Jori Epstein and Charles McDonald discuss everything to come out of the Colts’ hiring of their former Pro Bowl Center as their interim head coach. Colts’ owner Jim Irsay has been front and center the past few weeks. First he called out Commanders’ owner Daniel Snyder, fired Frank Reich, hired Jeff Saturday, and held the cringiest press conference of the season. Hear the full conversation on the You Pod to Win the Game podcast. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
CHARLES ROBINSON: I got to tell you, watching the press conference, the Jim Irsay press conference, it was revelatory. Analytics is hard, but football's not. Jeff Saturday's just like Don Shula. It was like 60 years ago when Don Shula got a head coaching job.
Jim remembers that time that he did the weekly install with Ted Marchaibroda, which apparently was in the mid 90s. I'm pretty sure Jim Irsay doesn't know what the hell decade is. Like, someone should have said what year is it, Jim? Let's start with the basics, and then we'll move on to your hire. That is the takes the cake press conference of probably all of 2022, by the time we get done with it.
JORI EPSTEIN: It was definitely wild, and [INAUDIBLE] I think you broke that down well in your column. I just couldn't stop thinking about last month, when we were at the owners meetings in New York. And Jim Irsay is coming up to us, telling us there's merit to remove Dan Snyder and here's why and the league owners need to be responsible.
And I just couldn't stop thinking Monday night as I'm watching him and listening to him introduce Jeff Saturday, if the timeline was switched, like, would Dan Snyder even be considering a transaction right now? It's almost like he picked the exact right order to be crazy in? It is wild. I don't know what's going on with him this season, but I appreciate that he went after Snyder first.
Also, I just can't even imagine what it's like to be a member of the Colts right now. Definitely talked to some people who told me it reminded them a little bit of the Raiders organization at certain times in history, which was not a favorable comparison when it was made. It was wild. What about you, CMac? You actually had some great feedback and analysis and tweets on all of this.
CHARLES MCDONALD: Well, I guess-- well, the first thing I thought was, is this, like, an Elon Musk prank? Like, I see Adam Schefter on my phone, it says the Colts have hired Jeff Saturday to be their interim head coach. But like, I still wasn't sure for a good five minutes.
And then after that, once the initial laughter had subsided from the Colts basically getting as close to a real life Ted Lasso situation as you can get, I started to get upset, I think? Because I find it hard to believe that if Jeff Saturday was a Black person, that he would have gotten this job handed to him.
And if you're looking for the qualifications if Jim Irsay's major qualifications are we want a former Colt who has represented the franchise well. Like, Reggie Wayne's on staff-- a coach on your staff right now. I don't know why you had to go all the way to Jeff Saturday who was just like on TV last week tweeting about the Raiders, who they play next, who's going to be his first game that he coaches.
Once I got over like how silly and crazy it was, I just kind of got disappointed that this was the route in which it went. And I know that there's no Rooney Rule with the interim situation. But when Jim Irsay comes out and says, idealistically the plan is for Jeff Saturday to do a good job and be the long term head coach, it just kind of makes you think about the lack of opportunities that some of these Black coaches are getting about and what we've been talking about for years now.
Because it's just kind of crazy to me that someone can just come in and skip the line like that with no qualifications. I mean, we've seen guys who haven't called plays or don't have as much experience get head coaching jobs. But someone with no head coach, no coaching experience at the college or NFL level, and he's even like a couple of years removed from high school coaching experience. It just kind of made me think, like, what are we doing here?
And if I was a Colts fan, I would have absolutely no hope that we get this next off season right. Because I think there's still some pieces there to kind of rebound quickly. But I don't know how you can trust your leadership right now.
CHARLES ROBINSON: He's the owner buddy. I mean, that's what happened. He was the buddy.